GIVE FIFTY ONE Family,
@GIVEFIFTYONE enjoyed a great night of fun with the up and coming band @Skyhawdrive several weeks ago in Mint Hill, NC!The band has a great sound, great message, and great spirits. Check them out and give them some support.http://www.facebook.com/skyhawkdrive
And Buy a GIVEFIFTYONE watch, to change a life if you haven’t yet! #buyawatchchangealife

#watchthewatch

http://cltbuzz.com/fashion/give-fifty-one-is-helping-end-child-homelessness/

Posted By Constantine

GIVE FIFTY ONE is a humanitarian apparel brand that gives 51% of their profit of apparel sold to end child homelessness. They exist so that child homelessness doesn’t have to.

In August 2011 two students, Jonathan Jones and Alexander Greer, met at a volunteer orientation in Charlotte, NC. They discovered that they not only attended the same law school, but also that they both had a passion to inspire social change concerning youth through entrepreneurship. In pursuit of impacting youth socially in their own lives, they decided to work in an after-school mentoring program where they found that some of the mentee students were homeless. They began to research child homelessness and learned that each year over 1.6 million children in the United States and 100 million children worldwide are without homes. Jonathan and Alex soon became aware that in their own community of Charlotte alone the number of homeless children had risen from 1,038 in 2004 to 4,711 in 2011. Their direct encounter with child homelessness through the mentoring program inspired them to create a humanitarian apparel brand, fusing an idea of social entrepreneurship with their desire to help support homeless children.

Since then, GIVE FIFTY ONE was formed to meet the needs of homeless children. Because they believe that it is better to give than to receive, 51% of the brand’s profit from apparel sold is given to bring awareness to child homelessness, provide direct support to homeless children, and support other programs that help homeless children through strategic partnerships. Ultimately, GIVE FIFTY ONE seeks to erase child homelessness both in the U.S. and throughout the world.

GFO will be attending 2 events soon, October 19th, 22nd and 23rd, where we will be selling our Watches, Vnecks and Tank Tops and bringing awareness to child homelessness. Come out and join us! Wear your GFO gear too.

The events are below:

1) Friday, Oct. 19th at 7pm LIVE MUSIC with Skyhawk Drive and Big City- at Hope Christian Church; 11221 Lawyers Rd; Mint Hill, NC,(This event will also be raising money for Neet’s Sweets- a venture addressing sex trafficking) Click link below to get more info:

http://www.facebook.com/events/504691289558686/

2) Monday and Tuesday night, Oct. 22 & 23 at 7pm (We will be there both nights) – Dollars for Dreams Market place at Forest Hill Church, (also a Women Under Construction event)click link below to get more info:

http://www.foresthill.org/events/women-under-construction-high-anxiety.html

Come hang with us. We would love your support!

GIVE FIFTY ONE
Dream Big. Believe Big. Give Big!
#EndChildHomelessness

- 80% of the kids in village schools have lost one or two parents’ largely due to the AIDS pandemic.
- 45% have lost both parents.
- 20% come from poor families that are often overburdened by extra orphaned kids
- Of the 45% who have lost both parents, about 20% come from child headed families.
- Most of these kids are in the home of grandparents or a benevolent, but poor
extended family member. As earlier stated, you find about 20% in child headed homes. This is a rural setting and therefore the ‘homelessness’ factor is different from what you will ordinarily find in an urban setting where kids roam the streets. In the rural setting, the extended family values are strong, but have been severely weakened and be-deviled by untimely deaths of parents and general poverty as the working and wealth generating working age group of 21 to 45 has been creamed off through HIV infections and AIDS deaths.
- The average life expectancy in Zimbabwe is 34 years for women and 37 for men.

The statistics are staggering and heartbreaking. Even though Alex did not know these stats at the time of his Zimbabwe trip, the reality of the apparent scarcity stirred an inspiration in Alex’s heart to want to start a movement to help impoverished people. (Below are more pics from Alex’s trip)

After reading the book “Start Something That Matters” authored by Blake Mycoskie (of TOMS) he was further motivated. Several months later, he shared the book and his heart with Jonathan Jones, who was also ready to start making a difference in the world.
After a couple of months of mentoring local Charlotte children, they both discovered the issue of child homelessness with one of their mentees. This experience grabbed them even more and caused them to want to tailor their mission towards the prevention and elimination of child homelessness not only in Charlotte and Bikita, but globally. The basic underlying value is that “Every Child Deserves a Home!” Together, with like minds, they were then able to form GFO with the goal of going to Bikita (and beyond) to address poverty and specifically child homelessness.
Going forward, GFO is in beginning stages of forming a partnership with the Mushayamunda Christian Development Trust (MCDF – http://www.mcdforphans.org/), an already existing entity that is helping Bikita orphans. This partnership will entail several measures to address child homelessness. GFO and its nonprofit GFO Foundation will first begin by using it’s 51% funds to sponsor village orphans – Your watches are making a difference!
We will then move towards sending funds and personnel to Bikita to build several orphanages by next summer of 2013 – This project is tentatively dubbed “PROJECT FIFTY ONE” where we will raise $51K and start building. More to come on these measures in the future.

The following text is a letter to GFO from MCDF:

“We see our immediate task as that of beating general hopelessness in the future because of the intergenerational cycles of poverty that are attendant on the kids. The main tool we extend is holistic Christian ministry that ministers to the spirit, the mind and the body. Transformation starts with the spirit. The spirit positively informs the mind. The mind creates positive energy that is articulated in the physical.
Our task is that of providing an equal opportunity to every child of a good education. Education is a pre-occupation that provides the needed developmental needs, prepares the whole being of the child for skills development for later in life, and ultimately spawns hope – for this life and for eternity. While teachers do a good job in a very challenging environment, we see the need to bring along mentors through pastoral associates in the schools who do devotions and teach bible in the schools.
In the short term, we are going to be implementing a child feeding program in
the schools so that these kids can be assured of at least a meal in the day. This is however dependent on availability of continued sponsorship for this program. In the medium term, we hope to build an orphanage for those living in child headed homes.
For right now, we are content to call our program, ‘the open orphanage
system’ because though we do not have a building or ‘orphanage’, we do feed, clothe, educate and mentor the fatherless and motherless who would otherwise not have a chance against the great tide of AIDS and poverty. We are grateful that God is sending you, and you are willing to
stand with us in this task.”

With this said, there is much work ahead. GFO is dedicated to providing resources not only our local situation in Charlotte and the US, but also to Bikita and other villages, and nations. We have a global vision to end child homelessness and we will. We will “Circle the Dot” – Thing Big and Start Small. Thank you for your support GFO family!

Grab some of their trendy surf inspired, generosity driven apparel today!

Kai threads is a Charlotte based surf-inspired apparel brand determined to set an example of generosity in our culture. With each purchase, they will give 10% to fund strategic non-profits/charities already making an impact. Their mission isn’t to recreate organizations to make a better world but to support the ones already successful at doing so.

GFO Founders, Alex and Jonathan have a special connection with Kai Threads CEO, Ben Richardson. On the same day that Alex and Jonathan met at Elevation Church’s First Experience volunteer meeting last August, they both met Ben for the first time also. He was their volunteer leader. Little did they know that day that afterwards, they would all go on to start socially conscious brands in Charlotte, NC that now have the potential to make a global impact – making our world better!
Now you can help. Join the movement, grab some merch, buy a watch, change a life!

Blue Jean Bash Part 2 is here friends! This Friday, August 24th GFO will be handing out over 380 jeans to homeless children at 11:30am at Walter G. Byers School located at 1415 Hamilton Street Charlotte, NC28206.

What is Blue Jean Bash might you ask?
Great Question! Our first event took place at the end of July. It described below along with a video to show you just how the Charlotte community is coming together to bring awareness to the problem of child homelessness and ultimately put an end to it!

Blue Jean Bash Part 1:

More than 30 volunteers came together, July 25^th, for GIVE FIFTY ONE’s Blue Jean Bash Part 1. This event was created out of a relationship that GIVE FIFTY ONE develop with Walter G. Byers Elementary and Middle School. This relationship will allow GFO the opportunity to provide homeless kids at Walter G. Byers with jeans that were donated by Aeropostale and Dosomething.org’s Teens for Jeans program.

With over 380 jeans ready to be handed out GIVE FIFTY ONE wanted to go beyond just handing out jeans to kids in need. At the heart of everything that GFO does is hope, the hope for a better tomorrow, the hope for a life that is changed. Jeans are one step in the direction of restoring dignity to kids that might not have access to a new pair of jeans once their old pair wears out.

The volunteers were organized into three stations. One station was for folding jeans (back-pocket out) into a present, another station was for cutting ribbon to add that present-like flair to the jeans, and the last station was for writing messages of encouragement to place within the back-pocket of the jeans.

Who doesn’t like to open a present? Making the jeans into as much like a present as possible was the goal of wrapping them in ribbon and including a special hand-written note from someone who cares.

GIVE FIFTY ONE’s Blue Jean Bash was a smashing success due to the help and hearts of the volunteers that showed out. The more that the community unites behind seeing an end to hopelessness and takes a stand on delivering change and a new life to these kids the closer this community will get to ending child homelessness. Thank you volunteers!

A video re-cap of the Blue Jean Bash…

Give Fifty One Blue Jean Bash from LL2 Productions on Vimeo.